


Lost Boys

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Great Hiatus, POV Female Character, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Mrs. Hudson can't help but remember, reflect, and feel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Written for JWP #11: **Ladies' Night:** Use a female POV.
> 
>  **Warnings** : A character piece that relies on a few well-known canon facts. **And absolutely no beta.** This was written in a complete rush. You have been warned.
> 
>  
> 
>  

  
It was hard enough the first time, losing my son.  
  
I should not dwell on such things, I know. And mostly I don’t, except some days, like today, all alone in the quiet of my rooms, I just can’t help myself. Can’t help remembering, and reflecting, and feeling.  
  
He was never very strong, my poor Robin. As a babe, I nursed him and nurtured him, and did the very best that I could. The doctor shook his head, but other women, other mothers, were more help to me than he was, when all was said and done. They proved wiser, too, for Robin did live. He was always thin, no matter how much I tried to feed him up, and never rosy-cheeked, but such a bright, merry boy! He was the apple of his father’s eye, naturally, and a general favorite with everyone he met.  
  
He was soldier-mad when he grew older, fascinated by the merest glimpse of a uniform. My husband understood it a phase all boys went through, and tolerated his playing, even as he taught him about the business, for of course Robin should take over one day. But my boy, for all his spoken agreement with his father, never had the same sparkle in his eye when learning the trade as he did when reading about Her Majesty’s Army’s latest action. My mother’s heart feared that he would one day rebel against school and business and the safe, prosperous life we wanted for him, and run off to join the ranks.  
  
And perhaps he would have, had he lived. The doctor said that he likely picked up the disease at the local school, where we sent him to learn his letters and figures, but it really could have been anywhere. That’s the truth of living in a city. You can’t hide from the tuberculosis, any more than you can hide from the influenza or the catarrh or any of the other million diseases. And tuberculosis it was, in a very bad form. We neither had any family that could help us, but my husband had a friend who lived in the country, where the air was good, and Robin might have a better chance. I resisted the idea at first, not wanting to send him away.  
  
Maybe if I had agreed at once, things might have turned out differently. Or maybe they wouldn’t, and all that would have changed was that Robin would have died alone, amongst strangers, instead of at home, with his head in his mother’s lap and his father beside him, and his little dog whimpering beside his bed.  
  
Mr. Hudson never held his head up the same way after Robin died. He passed away not two years after our boy breathed his last.  
  
I could not run the business, so I sold it, and used the money to set myself up as a landlady. My days as a wife and mother were done, or so I told myself, and yet I had to survive, and being a landlady is one of the few ways a woman can make a living in the world without losing her place.  
  
I was right in part, and wrong in another. I haven’t married again, but my mothering heart wasn’t done, no matter how I tried to tell it differently. And it found purchase soon enough in two of my lodgers.  
  
They were a mixed pair and no mistake, those two young men.  
  
One was a soldier, brown from the sun, nearly skin and bones, and worn to a shadow with injury and illness. My mind’s eye couldn’t help but see Robin in him, all grown up and home from the wars he never lived to fight. It was so easy to want to care for Dr. Watson, to feed him up and put flesh on his bones the way Robin never could manage to do, to see roses bloom to his cheeks and the sparkle grow in his eyes. It was easy to love him, too, as kind as he was, and with no family of his own. He treated me from the first with the same respect and care that I believed he would have shown his own mother, had she still been living. I rejoiced from the heart when he recovered his health, and still more when he introduced me to the lovely young woman he intended to make his bride. I sorrowed, too, for I would miss having him under my wing, but like any dutiful son, he never forgot me. He came ‘round regularly, and always stopped to visit. He and his Mary had me over quite often, and she too treated me as a second mother. So he wasn’t lost to me, just grown and flown, as children should.  
  
And then there was the other. Mr. Holmes. He, too, was thin, but unlike the doctor, he never fattened up no matter how hard I tried. He never gained roses in his cheeks. He was tall and spare and demanding, and oh, the people he brought into my house! Noises at all hours, and noxious chemicals, and a volatile temper that led him to sulk for days on end when he was in one of his black moods. He was as difficult as Dr. Watson was easy. And yet he could be merry, too, and considerate, and oh, how bright he was! Sharp as a tack, and so clever about so many things, including caring for me in ways I hardly even noticed at first, he was so sneaky about it. He was just as motherless as his friend when they came to me, though much harder to care for, and yet I think I loved him as a son just as much as Dr. Watson by the end of the first year, if not more so. Mothers shouldn’t have favorites, but Mr. Holmes won a special place in my heart that no one had ever claimed, not even my Robin. And I worried about him just as much as I did my lost child, about his health, and about so many other things.  
  
It hurt just as much the second time, losing a son, no matter that he was never mine my blood.  
  
Dr. Watson came to tell me himself. He didn’t have to say a word. I knew just from looking at him what had happened: Mr. Holmes had gone off to fight his war, and had been lost on the battlefield like so many other soldiers. The doctor’s grief was so plain, along with his bewilderment. It was as if he simply could not believe that Mr. Holmes was dead, and yet here he was, and Mr. Holmes was not. He held my hands while I cried, and wasn’t ashamed to let me see the tears running down his own face, either. He certainly showed far more brotherly sorrow than Mr. Holmes’ flesh-and-blood one, when he came by to make his wishes known about continuing to rent the rooms. And yet Mr. Mycroft Holmes was kind to me, too, far kinder than he might have been to a mere landlady. It helped some, knowing that my Mr. Holmes must have spoken fondly of me to him, that he treated me with such consideration.  
  
Time passed, and Dr. Watson continued to look out for me, although I noticed he preferred to have me visit rather than come to Baker Street. At first I thought this was simply sorrow, but time soon showed me another reason; his Mary was pregnant with their first child. Those were happy days, then, and I visited as often as I could. They always made me feel welcome, part of the family, and that helped more than I can say even now.  
  
Perhaps particularly now, now that the little family is gone and only Dr. Watson is left. My last son, who faltered when Mr. Holmes died, and has never held up his head the same way since the day Mary passed on. I pay him what visits I can, show my concern in all the ways that he will allow. He is unfailingly kind, and dutiful, and yet I fear he too will leave me soon, and then I will have lost all my boys.  
  
A knock sounds at the door, bringing me out of my gloomy reverie. I sent my house-boy out earlier on errands, and it’s the house-maid’s half-day, so I must answer the door myself. Whoever it is must be impatient, for knuckles thunder against the wood twice more before I can turn the lock and open the door.  
  
And there, standing in broad daylight, unhealthily pale and frighteningly thin but unmistakably alive, is Mr. Holmes.  
  
He steps inside before I can move a muscle or find my voice, and closes the door behind him. He has never been a demonstrative man, or one given to casual touches, but he opens his arms without reservation when I burst into tears. He holds me gently as I sob against his chest, and although he says nothing, I can feel him tremble just slightly, and I know he feels just as much as I do.  
  
It takes me a dreadfully long time to regain my composure, but I manage it at last. “Does he know?” is the first question out of my mouth.  
  
Just as of old, Mr. Holmes knows exactly what I mean. “Not yet,” he says quietly, and his voice is almost just the same as ever. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sound so uncertain, though, when he continues. “He will be so angry.”  
  
I sniff loudly and pull back to look him in the face. “Dr. Watson will be just as angry as I am, which is to say he’ll be so thankful to see you alive that he’ll forgive you at once, and forget to scold you a quarter as much as you deserve,” I tell him, proud that my voice only shakes a little. “He will be so very glad.”  
  
Mr. Holmes pulls away and shifts his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I heard about Mary.”  
  
“Yes.” I could ask how, but that isn’t important just this moment. “Then you know exactly why you must go to him as soon as possible, and why you must convince him to come back here to live with us, once you finish whatever business or case or whatever it is you’re working on."  
  
A sharp, assessing look, one I remember well, though I was rarely the recipient of it, and never thought to see it again. “How do you know…?”  
  
“I am not Sherlock Holmes’ landlady for nothing,” I tell him tartly, and am rewarded with a tiny smile. “You’d have not have…” - I fumble for the right words - “have stayed away so long, except that something kept you away, and you’d not be here with me now instead of with him, except that you need something from me to help you with whatever case it is that kept you away for so long.” I gentle my voice. “So ask, Mr. Holmes, and if I can help you, I will. You know that.”  
  
“Mrs. Hudson.”  That’s all he says, just my name, and yet I hear in its syllables everything my starved mother’s heart ever longed for: affection, and respect, and love. “Oh, Mrs. Hudson.”  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

>  _"I came over at once to London, called in my own person at Baker Street, threw Mrs. Hudson into violent hysterics, and found that Mycroft had preserved my rooms and my papers exactly as they had always been."_ \- The Adventure of the Empty House
> 
> Originally posted July 11, 2013


End file.
